E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
Jovito R. Salonga
Sunday, 08 12, 2007
He lived his life without the great apprehension of being reduced to insignificance even as the nation failed to realize that he was the president we ought to have had in 1992. He had just led the Senate of the Philippines in rejecting the RP-US Bases Treaty. It was the right thing to do, but it was an unpopular move, and that spelled his doom at the polls. And in a country that holds a misplaced premium on youth and looks, he was derided for his age — he was 72 then — and they said he was too old and fragile in health to lead the nation he had served all his life.
Now, at 87, Jovito R. Salonga, whom we, his disciples in public service fondly call JRS, has been revenged on the whole pack of those who scornfully referred to him as “that one-eyed, one-eared, old pol,” an allusion to his physique after he miraculously survived the 1971 Plaza Miranda bombing but left him with one functioning eye and a permanently impaired hearing in one ear. What the bomb failed to destroy was the brain of the man, the brilliant mind that drew the respect of his professors in Harvard (1948) and in Yale (1949), an intellect that earned him the Ambrose Gehrini Prize for writing the best paper on international law.
This was the same intellect that authored books that have become the Filipino lawyers’ bible on Evidence and Public/Private International Law. This was the same mind that guided his deanship of a law school that produced Bar topnotchers and magistrates of the land. This was the bright, uncompromising intellect acclaimed by the Philippines Free Press when that feared and fearless publication dubbed him “The Nation’s Fiscalizer.” This was the intellect that throbbed in the being of this nationalist who lawyered for the release of political prisoners and continues today to fight for decency in the nation through his Kilosbayan and Bantay Katarungan. This was the brilliant brain that authored laws now protecting the state from plunder, military coups and corrupt officials and, in 1991 as Senate president, triumphantly led colleagues in ejecting American military bases from the Philippines. This is JRS: Mr. Decent, Mr. Seeker of the Right, The Nation’s Conscience.
His service to democracy and good government over six decades puts JRS in a league by himself. A crusader for clean government, he was the first (in the 1960s) to expose the anomalies in the administration of then President Ferdinand Marcos. As the first chairman of the Presidential Commission on Good Government, JRS initiated the legal efforts to reclaim the wealth of the nation that was purloined by those whom the 1986 Edsa revolt sent into exile.
Informed of his being named a Magsaysay Awardee, JRS, in a humility very characteristic of him, could only utter: “I am humbled.”
Indeed, as the Good Book says, those who humble themselves shall be exalted and those who exalt themselves shall be humbled. JRS clearly belongs to the former. This humble man of humble beginnings — he was born to poor parents from Rizal, worked early on as a zacatero, and would go to school unshod — fills us with awe of his probity and virtue. Throughout his career as legislator, elected three times as senator, each time as topnotcher, his name was never for once tainted with anomaly. He has kept his nose clean in a milleu where politicians are the exemplars of everything wrong and abominable in public service. A sterling example of integrity, he has lived his life according to a creed that is echoed in Republic Act 6713, or “The Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Government Officials and Employees,” a law which JRS authored:
“Public officials and employees shall at all times be accountable to the people and shall discharge their duties with utmost responsibility, integrity, competence and loyalty, act with patriotism and justice, lead modest lives and uphold public interest over personal interest.”
When JRS was conferred the degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, by the University of the Philippines - a defining moment in my relationship with this sainted man and which started me off to public service through the legislature — he exhorted everyone to “remain true to the people, act with justness and sincerity, at all times respect the rights of others, and refrain from doing acts contrary to law, good morals, good customs, public policy, public order, public safety and public interest.”
In thought, in word, in deed, in his writings, in his lectures, in his actions, JRS practices what he preaches.
Following the conferment on Aug. 31 of the Magsaysay Award for Public Service on JRS, he will be feted as well by the Sigma Rho as its Most Distinguished Member, for exemplifying and living the code of conduct of this fraternal organization that has produced and nurtured a man like him.
The Magsaysay medal is definitely not the penultimate award that Jovito R. Salonga rightfully deserves. But it should make us Filipinos truly proud of the man, and prompt us to congratulate ourselves that we are truly blessed to be still around while a remarkable man like him still moves in our midst. And by the lesson that his life teaches us, we should not be frightened by “the dread of insignificance, the notion that we will be born, live and one day none of it will matter. A good many people don’t want to live forever — it is like reading a good book or watching a good movie that never ends. Many people understand that the story of our lives must have a beginning, a middle, and an end; but what they desperately want is to live long enough to get it right, to feel that they have done something worthwhile with their lives.”
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